


If King and Sir were Adopted on Campus

by Rory_writes



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew with kittens need I say more?, Cute, Cute Animals, Fluff, Kevin with hamsters tho, M/M, Multi, Nicky and Matt are so big and bunnies are so small!!!!, Team Bonding, animal adoption, sweetheart Andrew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rory_writes/pseuds/Rory_writes
Summary: On the way to their weekly original 9 Foxes lunch, Andrew notices an animal adoption drive and there's nothing any of them can do other than to follow the usually scary blonde into the pen with the small animals.Matt and Nicky nearly cry over the small af bunnies, Kevin gets inundated by hamsters, and Andrew... well Andrew finds the litter of sleeping kittens.Neil has no idea what to do with baby animals, but lets his boyfriend hand him a kitten.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 200





	If King and Sir were Adopted on Campus

**Author's Note:**

> This is not beta read, please be nice!

Neil wasn’t surprised to find the upperclassmen and Nicky outside his classroom building, it was a Thursday and the group had realised they all had Thursday afternoons off. It had become a bit of a team building exercise, but without the new recruits who often had tutoring at this time, and a way for the Foxes who had survived the year before as a family to stay close. Nicky always brought Aaron with him, and because Neil had asked Andrew to go every week, Kevin tagged along. The twins and Kevin were always the last to arrive because their classes were further from Neil’s than the others’, but Neil still wasn’t sure why his classroom was the meeting point.  
Nicky was talking excitedly about a new restaurant that wasn’t a far drive from campus that they could go to for lunch, which sounded like a good idea to Neil because he was getting a little tired of visiting the same places downtown as they always did. Matt bumped Neil’s shoulder when he joined the group and Neil smiled in return at Renee and Allison. Dan looped an arm over his shoulder and leaned on him a little bit as they waited, listening to Nicky. Neil glanced in the direction Andrew and the others would come and saw him walking towards them with Aaron and Kevin flanking him. Dobson had been working hard on the twins and their issues, and there was slow process, but just seeing them walking next to each other was a milestone even though it had been happening for a few days now. Andrew was swigging from a large stainless-steel drink bottle that Neil realised with surprise was Aaron’s and when he handed it back to his twin, Nicky grabbed onto Neil’s elbow tightly.

“Are they sharing? Like actually?” He asked and Neil shook his hand off him.

“Yeah, Betsy must be doing her job,” he said. Nicky grinned, but wiped it off his face as the trio got closer so as not to draw his cousins’ ire.

“Hey guys,” Matt said. Kevin nodded at him, Andrew stared impassively past him and Aaron claimed his spot next to Nicky.

“How was class?” Renee asked, looking at Andrew, but talking to everyone.

“Interesting,” Kevin said and then hesitated. All he ever really wanted to talk about was Exy, but he was a history major and if someone asked him when he was in a good enough mood, he would sometimes talk about some of the things he learned in his classes. Renee smiled invitingly and the group set off across campus towards Fox towers to their cars with Kevin murmuring quietly to Renee about his last class. Allison was talking to Matt and Dan about some gossip or another and Nicky was telling Aaron about the new restaurant. Neil was at the back of the group with Andrew with their pace matched stride for stride. They weren’t talking, but his familiar presence was comforting and reassuring, and when Andrew shifted his book from his left hand to his right, Neil turned his palm in waiting. Andrew interlaced their fingers and Allison was the only one to notice. Neil had no idea how she did it, but it was always Allison who was the first, and often only, Fox who caught them in their infrequent and subtle forms of PDA.

They were halfway across campus when Andrew stopped in his tracks, looking intently past Neil and his grip tightened. Neil squeezed back, if only to remind Andrew that he was squeezing Neil’s fingers, and followed his gaze. There was a raised red and white tent roof to the side of a common walkway and under the tent was a fence. Neil looked closer and saw that the sign boasted that it was Mental Health Week on campus and that inside the high fence was animals to be cuddled and played with to boost student morale. Neil looked back at Andrew with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” He asked and Andrew glanced at him. The other Foxes had realised they weren’t being followed and paused a few steps ahead, looking back at them curiously.

“Animals,” Andrew said, as if that answered Neil’s question.

“Yes,” Neil agreed carefully, “So…?” Andrew let go of Neil’s hand and walked off in the direction of the tent and fence. Neil stared after him and then looked at the group.

“Is he serious?” Matt asked, pointing at Andrew.

“I thought psychopaths killed animals, should we stop him?” Allison asked breezily. Renee and Aaron shot her disapproving looks and Allison shrugged in response.

“Are we going after him?” Dan asked Neil. They did that a lot, asked Neil what they should do when it came down to Andrew and even though he knew it was because Neil understood him better than anyone, Neil wished they would think for themselves sometimes.

“I think he wants us to,” Neil replied and turned on his heel to jog after his boyfriend. Andrew let the animal handler squirt sanitiser on his hand as Neil caught up and he went in through the gate straight away. Neil watched from outside the gate as Andrew found a corner and sat down, not looking up at any of the Foxes as they arrived. Nicky and Renee accepted hand sanitiser and went in too, sitting down away from Andrew and near some sleeping rabbits. Kevin followed wordlessly and immediately went over to a platform that held cages of mice or rats or hamsters and wiggled his fingers in the gaps. Allison wrinkled her nose at a puppy as it pawed up the fence to her, but her eyes softened as it let out a pitiful whine and then she too was rubbing sanitiser on her hands and scooping the puppy up from inside the fence.

“Are you coming?” Dan asked as she rubbed her hands together. Matt opened the gate for her and Aaron and stepped in behind them and when Neil shook his head Matt shot him a curious glance.

“Are you scared of them?” He asked and Neil shook his head again. Matt eyed him for a moment before joining Allison and Dan with two more puppies. Neil watched as his teammates cooed and cuddled the small animals, and then his gaze found Andrew again. He hadn’t moved, he wasn’t even holding or petting any animals, but he was watching a handful of sleeping kittens near where he sat. The look on his face was calm, like always, but it wasn’t a blank calm. His eyes were soft and his lips were relaxed as he sat cross-legged on the grass with his hands on his knees.  
Neil hadn’t lied exactly, he wasn’t scared of animals, but he wasn’t sure of them. He had never had a pet in his life, and he had been forced to carve up dead animals when he was young although he had never been the one to kill them. When he was running with his mom, he hadn’t even been allowed to pet dogs on the street and it wasn’t like they’d ever visited a cat café on their travels. He didn’t really know what to do, and he didn’t understand them, and watching his teammates fawn over baby animals didn’t really make sense to Neil. They were cute, sure, but he didn’t understand the appeal to get into a cage full of them and cuddle them.  
Andrew looked up then and with one quick curl of his fingers, gestured for Neil to come into the pen. Neil shook his head, but Andrew cocked his head to the side and did it again. If Andrew was anyone other than Andrew, Neil might have mistaken the look in his eyes as pleading. Neil hesitated, huffed out a breath and then took some of the hand sanitiser and stepped inside. Nicky had a bunny in his arms and Renee was stroking its ears, while Aaron knelt on the ground near them carefully petting a sleeping tan and white puppy as if scared it was going to wake up. Kevin had opened the cage and was holding a rodent of some kind in one hand and staring at it curiously before putting it on his shoulder and putting his hand back in the cage. Dan, Matt and Allison were grinning and giggling as awake puppies climbed over their legs and nipped at their fingers.  
Neil picked his way around animal poo and his weird teammates to sit down gingerly next to Andrew on the far side of the kittens.

“Why are you being weird?” Andrew asked and Neil gaped at him.

“Me being weird?” He demanded and Andrew waited for a response. “What do you mean me? You have never once been interested in anything ever and then took off up a hill for baby animals,” Neil pointed out. He then gestured at the group around them and pulled a face. “Every single person in here is capable of extreme violence with the exception of maybe Nicky, but him I would expect this from, and here you all are gooey over small things with four legs.”  
Andrew watched him for a minute before turning away and reaching over to the nest of sleeping kittens. He scooped up the second smallest one, white with black ears and a spot a little off centre to his nose and plopped it in Neil’s lap. Neil stared down at it with muted horror and discomfort and watched it stretch at being woken up, paw at Neil’s shorts and roll onto his back. He licked his paw and scrubbed at his ear for a moment before curling back around and closing his yellow-green eyes.  
“Your survival instincts stink,” Neil told the kitten, but his voice was quieter than he had intended. He purred in response and Neil hesitantly used a finger to touch his back. His fur was soft and fluffy and warm from where he had been sleeping with his brothers and sisters in the sun. He rolled again at his touch and curled around his finger, his eyes still closed and his tongue poking out, pink against the white and black. He looked up at Andrew with his eyes wide.  
“Now what do I do?” He asked.

“Have you never patted a cat before?” Andrew asked.

“I have never, in my life, pet any animal,” Neil said seriously. Andrew’s lips twitched and he shrugged.

“Do whatever you want, he’s asleep, he won’t care,” Andrew said and then turned to pick up the smallest kitten. This one was all gray and when he was scooped up, he woke and mewed in surprise. Andrew leaned against the fence, stretched out so his feet touched and put the cat in the pen he had created with his legs. He tapped the ground near the kitten and watched him pounce at his fingers. He gently flipped the kitten onto his back and let him bat at his fingers as he teased him. Neil watched in awe as his joyless, steely boyfriend played with the kitten. Andrew’s face didn’t change, stayed relaxed and calm, but otherwise lacking a smile, but Neil could see how much this was giving Andrew.  
After a long while he looked down at the kitten asleep on his legs and wiggled his finger. He didn’t even stir, but he started purring again and his small baby claws held tighter to Neil.

“You’re boring,” he told him, but he could feel his distrust melting away and being replaced by a soft warmth. Fondness both for the kitten on his lap oblivious to the friendly chaos around him, and for the man at his side playing with a kitten.

“Where do they come from?” Renee asked the animal handler.

“They’re all rescues, even the hamsters,” the handler replied, gesturing at Kevin who had four small creatures on his shoulders and in his hands. He was smiling, his genuine not-for-the-camera smile and Neil shook his head at him. “They’re all up for adoption,” he added, “this campus is pet friendly I was told.” It was clear the gentleman was hoping the students at Palmetto would adopt the animals, but Neil wasn’t sure if they would all go.

“Have any been adopted?” Allison asked, holding one end of a toy as a puppy growled and pulled on it playfully.

“Three of the puppies have been adopted by staff,” the handler said, pointing at three of the seven puppies in the pen. None of the puppies looked like the same breed, Neil realised, which meant they weren’t related. Neil felt a little sad for them then, hoping that their litter mates had all been adopted or kept by wanting owners.

“Any others?” Renee asked, smooching a rabbit’s long black ears.

“Nope, not yet, you interested?” He asked.

“How much for this little guy?” Nicky asked, proffering the smallest, dappled bunny in the air. Aaron and Matt both stared at him, Matt in surprise and Aaron in warning.

“We are not keeping a rabbit in our dorm,” Aaron snapped.

“Why not?” Nicky asked and showed Aaron his small paws. “He is the cutest thing I have ever seen; we have to keep him.”

“We aren’t rescuing strays,” Aaron snapped, and more than one Fox laughed.

“Since when?” Allison asked, gesturing at Neil and Kevin and then at the rest of her team. Her meaning was clear, they were all strays.

“Yeah, and I took in you and him,” Nicky added, tilting his head to Andrew who now had the gray kitten in both hands and was holding it up to his face.

“We don’t have a hutch thing,” Matt said, but he was talking reasonably not and not with warning.

“All the animals except the hamsters are litter trained, he doesn’t need a hutch, just a litter tray and a bed,” the handler said. Matt rose to his feet and crossed to Nicky and the small rabbit, stroking his brown and dappled ears. Aaron’s mouth was wide open as he stared at the two of them and Dan was grinning. The bunny was smaller than the palm of Matt's hand and Nicky handed it over gently.

“Does it chew on anything?” Nicky asked and the handler smiled in amusement.

“It’s a rabbit, of course it does, but it won’t chew on cords if you give it enough toys to chew on,” he said, and Matt waved his free hand.

“We can also put padding around the entertainment unit and keep our room shut,” he said easily.

“Are you guys being fucking serious?” Aaron demanded. When he was ignored, he glared at them for a moment longer and then let out a long, harrowing sigh. “Does it need a friend or are rabbits okay on their own?” He asked. Neil, Matt, Nicky and the girls turned to stare at him. Even Kevin and Andrew lowered their small animals from their faces a little to look at him. Aaron ignored them and waited expectantly for the handler to respond.

“They are usually better with a friend,” he said honestly, “and his friend is the little black one in his girlfriend’s arms,” he added, gesturing at Renee and Nicky. Renee smiled and handed the small black bunny to Nicky who was frowning at her being called his girlfriend.

“I’m gay,” he said, but the handler clearly didn’t care.

“Has our lunch really been postponed so that we can buy bunny supplies?” Allison asked as Matt, Nicky and Aaron filled out the adoption papers and listened to what rabbits eat and how to care for them. Neil wasn’t paying much attention because the kitten in his lap had woken up and was hopping around on his legs, following his finger playfully. The gray kitten had fallen asleep on Andrew's shoulder and he was stroking it gently.

“And kitten supplies,” Neil said, without thinking. Andrew jerked his gaze to Neil and his nostrils flared, the only sign that Neil had surprised him.

“No,” Kevin said firmly, but Neil waved him away.

“Excuse me?” Nicky asked, looking over at them. He melted at the sight of his joyless cousin stroking a baby kitten on his shoulder and he nodded. “Good call Neil,” he said.

“Are you serious?” Allison asked, “did I not say that psy-” Renee and Dan cut her off with reproving looks and she closed her mouth, smiling at them. “This is going to be interesting,” she decided.

“Wymack is going to freak when he finds out we’ve done this,” Matt said, but he was smiling at the animal in his hand. Neil shrugged and picked up the kitten, holding it towards Andrew who didn’t even hesitate to take him and put him in the pen of his legs, letting him chase his fingers.

“Let Wymack freak,” Neil said, leaning over the table next to Nicky and Matt to fill out his own forms. The handler rattled off the things that they would need and how to look after the cats, and when Neil glanced at Andrew, he saw that he was paying attention so Neil stopped. Matt and Nicky paid the adoption fees for the bunnies and Neil handed over the money for the two kittens, and then they joined the others outside the pen. Andrew came out last, Neil’s white kitten in his hands and he handed him back to Neil so that he could cradle his own sleeping kitten safely off his shoulder for the walk. Allison came over and smiled approvingly at the white kitten before joining Dan in her adoration for the bunnies as they walked. Kevin and Aaron were walking together behind them, shaking their heads and murmuring to each other; probably about how annoying their roommates were.  
Renee sidled up to Andrew and peered down at the small creature in his hands, her gaze already soft and loving.

“What are you going to name them?” She asked and looked at Neil too. Neil was a little distracted because his kitten was well and truly awake and kept trying to wriggle out of his hands to the sidewalk.

“Can we call this one ‘Little Bitch’?” Neil asked, hissing as the cat clawed at his hand.

“This one is King Fluffkins, and yours is Sir Fat Cat McCatterson,” Andrew said. Neil burst out laughing as he looked at his boyfriend’s profile.

“Are you serious?” Neil asked after a minute and when Andrew nodded, asked him why.

“Because I hate them,” Andrew said and dropped a kiss to King Fluffkin’s head. Neil grinned and looked down at Sir Fat Cat McCatterson.

“Did you hear that?” He asked him, “he hates you just as much as he hates me.”

“No,” Andrew said, meeting Neil’s eyes. “I hate you more,” he said. Neil smirked and stopped so that he could kiss his boyfriend quickly with their kittens in their hands. When he pulled back, he was unsurprised to meet Allison’s gaze. He shook his head and looked at Renee.

“Do you like the names?” He asked her, but she was still smiling in amusement.

“Can we call them King and Sir?” Renee asked and Andrew nodded.

“Yes, because no one except us three are going to know what I actually named them,” he said. Neil and Renee smiled at each other and fell back into step beside Andrew.  
Matt and Nicky were waltzing up the sidewalk towards Fox Towers with their rabbits held up as if to show the world their new additions. The rabbits looked calm and comfortable in their new owner’s big hands, even if they were an awful long way off the ground, and Neil was grateful that they had chosen the calmest rabbits in the world to live with them.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on TikTok (@raeganlei) for cosplay and book videos!
> 
> Kudos/comments are appreciated, constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
